


windows (they’re the only barrier to you)

by goreyer



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: But whatever, Dialogue Heavy, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jos Verstappen's A+ Parenting, M/M, Pining, Quarantine, References to Alice in Wonderland, Right?, Strangers to Lovers, and they were neighbours!, because we all have bad sleep schedules, even though i’ve never read or watched it, hanging out your window at 4am, mentions of mental health issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreyer/pseuds/goreyer
Summary: Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, Max felt like he and Daniel had stumbled into their own Wonderland, with colourful sunrises, crisp breezes and soft conversations whispered into the air.ORMax likes hanging out his window at 4am and turns out his neighbour does too.
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	windows (they’re the only barrier to you)

**Author's Note:**

> hey! so i had this idea one day and really really wanted to write it so uhhhh here you go! i know i should be updated ‘Warmth’ and i’m really annoyed i haven’t but i’ve been getting mega writers block for it so hopefully writing something else will help cure that somewhat :) 
> 
> hope you enjoy this!
> 
> (it’s actually based off my experiences of hanging out my window at night, unfortunately minus the attractive neighbour but oh well, so a lot of this are my own thoughts/experiences with quarantine. probably deserves a ‘working out my feelings through fic’ tag tbh)

When news broke of the quarantine effective immediately, Max couldn’t help but feel hard done by. No school meant no seeing his friends, who were about the only people who got him through life, and no school also meant having to stay at home with his father. That was perhaps the reason he was dreading quarantine the most. He didn’t hate the man; they had good times, and Max was the first to admit that, but his dad yelled too much and put too much pressure on him when it came to school. Sometimes it was just so exhausting that all Max wanted to do was crash at Lando’s house for the weekend to catch a break. But no, quarantine banned that too.

In one of his more dramatic periods of reflection, he wondered how on earth he’d survive. But the voice of reason told him it’d be fine and they’d be back to normal before too long, he just had to get through a couple weeks of online schooling and being trapped inside with his dad. He could do that. He knew he could.

He started quarantine productively, using online schooling as a chance to do extra work on topics that he wouldn’t usually do in class because of the constant distractions from his friends and even typed up some revision notes in preparations for exams. He felt good, kept his normal sleep schedule to an extent and even took advantage of the empty parks to go on a couple runs during his daily allowance of government-issued exercise time. Lando, Alex and George kept in contact frequently, they played games online in the evenings and they even invited some other guys from school into their Call of Duty sessions – namely Charles who, as much as Max hated to admit, was actually very good at the game and made for a good duo’s partner when no one else was online. Even his dad was seemingly content to stay out of his way, and looked to be happy with the amount of work Max was doing.

Until he wasn’t. Until Max took one day off because he was feeling under the weather. And that was enough to turn everything off-kilter. His dad yelled at him for being lazy and reminded him that he was going to get nowhere in life with the attitude he had, something that had Max choking up with anxiety. He always worried about his future; what he’d do in it and if he’d be able to achieve enough to get a good job and have enough money to be happy, and so for someone to consolidate what his worst, most self-destructive thoughts were telling him - that he was going to fail - it tore him apart.

And all of a sudden, his schedule was out of the window. His anxiety kept him up until 5am and left him bed-ridden until the afternoon, he would stare in the direction of his school books and rub at his eyes, wishing they’d go away so he didn’t have to beat himself up about not doing anything. But he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it, he couldn’t be bothered to do anything other than scroll mindlessly on his phone. Teachers emailed asking for missing work, which he duly ignored, and his friends kept typing away in group chats asking if he was up for a round of COD. He left the messages unopened until he felt he had enough energy to reply, and by then they were all asleep anyway.

The sun would serve as a sickening reminder to his inadequacies, rising before he’d gone to sleep and setting before he’d gotten out of bed. It was a vicious cycle, but it was one he couldn’t escape out of even if he had tried.

He had taken to sitting on his windowsill in the early hours of the morning with his legs hanging out of the window and playing music softly until the sunrise. It was probably one of the only things he took joy from at that time, with the colours of the sky and the crisp morning air grasping at the straws of his anxiety and pulling them away one by one. It became oddly soothing, and because no one was awake, he didn’t have to worry about looking weird to passersby.

He found himself doing it one night, when his thoughts became too much and he needed the fresh air to clear his head. He clambered onto the windowsill, swung his legs over the ledge and breathed a deep sigh. The sound of birdsong mixed melodically with the gentle beats of music playing from his speakers and it was enough to tug some of the stress from his bones.

It was nearing sunrise when he heard a noise to his left, so close it made him flinch and yet also glued him to the spot in fear. When he turned his head, he saw the window of the adjacent room opening, and a curly-haired boy leaned out of the window, eyebrows furrowed in what looked like confusion. Max scrambled for his phone, fumbling to turn off the music. He had never met his neighbours before, and he guessed he wasn’t making the best first impression.

“Huh, I knew I could hear music,” the boy said, triumphantly, turning to Max with a broad grin.

Max was in two minds about falling backwards into his room and forgetting this interaction ever happened, but that just meant he’d never be able to face his neighbours again, which he knew was a harder task than just entertaining the boy for a few minutes.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise it was that loud,” he apologised, face flushed in embarrassment.

The other boy climbed up onto his own windowsill until he was mirroring Max’s position, “it’s no problem, really. I’m not going to sleep for ages anyway so it’s alright.” His smile was far too bright for almost 5am.

“Still, I must’ve disturbed what you were doing,”

“Mate, we’re in quarantine. I’ve got fuck all to do, so you didn’t interrupt anything, promise.”

Max knew he had a point, but he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot. I mean who hangs out of their window watching the sunrise before they’ve even gone to sleep? Not people in their right mind, that’s for sure.

“Jesus it’s cold out here, how are you surviving?” The boy piped up again, shuddering to further emphasise his point.

Max looked down at his hands that were near blue from the freezing wind and shrugged, “I’m not, really. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll come down with a cold.”

The boy laughed heartily and Max almost flinched at the noise, praying that his dad wasn’t awoken by it. He didn’t know it was possible to laugh that hard and loud at such a lame joke.

“Hey at least it isn’t the virus, right?” The other boy said once he’d stopped laughing. “I’m Daniel, by the way. Your neighbour, but that’s pretty obvious I guess.”

“I’m Max,” Max replied, “and I had my suspicions but it’s nice of you to confirm it.”

Where he was getting these little shows of confidence he had no idea. Being charming and funny was not at all like him – maybe he was just sleep-deprived. But Daniel seemed to eat it up and held onto each and every word, clearly very much enjoying Max’s company. Max would feel slightly creeped out if they weren’t in the middle of a pandemic that stopped them from interacting with anyone outside of their household. If anything, it was slightly nice to see an unfamiliar face.

“So, what brings you to your window at the wonderful time of 5am?” Daniel asked, tapping away at his phone until a few notes of music tumbled out of the speakers.

Max shrugged, “couldn’t sleep.”

“Too much on your mind?”

A sigh passed Max’s lips and he mixed a nod with a shrug in hopes of creating a weird sort of non-committal answer that wouldn’t invite any unwanted questions. He never enjoyed talking about his problems; it always made them sound more real and that was far too scary.

Daniel watched him curiously, as if trying to figure out what was on Max’s mind without him having to say anything out loud. Max squirmed under the scrutiny but didn’t say a word, instead focusing his eyes forward towards the line of the horizon, drinking in the colours that mixed across the blue.

“Fuck quarantine,” Daniel said suddenly after a few moments of silence.

“It sucks,” concluded Max.

They chatted absentmindedly for a while, about trivial things really, avoiding the elephant in the room that was their ruined sleep-schedules and therefore clear anxieties about one thing or another. It wasn’t something Max would discuss with his friends, let alone a stranger whom he had met about 20 minutes ago. And he guessed Daniel felt the same, for they skirted around the topic and kept to the basics: school (or lack thereof), friends, video games. Max was surprised to learn he and Daniel had a lot in common, and he found himself actually enjoying talking to him.

He felt like he could speak freely – within reason of course – and words rolled more easily off the tongue when your inhibitions were lowered by a lack of sleep. It was easy. And Max just wasn’t used to easy, so he thrived in it.

They were halfway through talking about a new update on COD when a voice sounded from what Max assumed was Daniel’s room. The other boy turned until he was facing into his bedroom, wincing slightly before his face became hidden from Max’s view.

“Sorry Mum, yeah I’ll turn it off now don’t worry,” Daniel said, “yes, I’ll go to sleep soon and no, I was just… singing along to the songs.”

Max forced back a laugh at Daniel being caught and wondered how the boy would be able to convince his mum that he wasn’t talking to himself at 5 in the morning.

Daniel hopped down from his windowsill and reached for the handle of his window, miming a goodbye to Max before he pulled it shut and disappeared back into his room. Max sat for a while longer, until the lights from Daniel’s room turned off, at which point he agreed it was probably best for him to go to sleep as well, although he knew that he’d never be able to just go to sleep straight away. He his customary hour of staring at the ceiling compartmentalising every little detail of his life still to come.

But something in the back of his mind told him that this time it’d be easier to deal with.

-:-

When Max next ventured onto his windowsill, Daniel was already there, staring off blankly and seemingly far away in his own little world. His trance broke at the sound of Max’s window opening and it took a while for him to return to the present before a smile broke onto his face.

“Morning!” He said gleefully, leg bouncing up and down at a dizzying speed.

Max returned the smile and took his seat on the ledge, “Morning, you good?”

“Apart from the fact my sleep schedule has done a full 360 and I’m now going to sleep at 5pm and waking up at 4am, peachy!” Daniel joked, “what about you?”

“Surviving, I guess,”

Surviving was probably the perfect word to use. He was crawling through life really, trying to find scraps of happiness in the rubble of the world around him and it was exhausting. He tried not to think about how much school work he was missing, how many video game sessions with his friends he was missing, and especially how much time he was pissing away doing fuck all. But inevitably it was all he could really think about.

Daniel’s phone was playing a song too upbeat for Max’s mood, but after a while it succeeded in lifting his spirits slightly, something that was helped by the sight of Daniel softly jigging away to the beat in an uncoordinated way that made him laugh.

“Tell me something about you that no one else knows,” Daniel spoke quickly with rushed words that slurred together slightly, as if he was speaking too quickly for his brain to keep up. How he had so much energy, Max didn’t know.

“What?” Max replied unintelligently.

Daniel rolled his eyes, “I’m bored and I wanna know more about you. So tell me one thing that no one, not even your friends or family, knows about you,”

Max’s brain was working in overtime to try and think about something adequate to say, that wasn’t giving away too much but was still something that no one knew. He was open enough to his friends that they knew a lot about him, and the stuff they didn’t know weren’t things Max particularly wanted to admit to Daniel – especially after only speaking to him twice.

“I can’t think, you go first,” he conceded eventually, trying to buy himself some more time and inspiration as to what to say.

Daniel hummed gently as he thought. His leg had stopped bouncing and instead his thumbs were tapping lightning fast on the back of his phone.

After a while, he said, “I’m secretly a massive fan of screamo music,”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Exactly, that’s why no one knows it, because I knew they’d never believe me.”

Max chuckled quietly, his grin growing wider inadvertently. He took Daniel’s silence after that as an encouragement for him to take his turn so he wracked his brain for something at least relatively interesting to say.

“I don’t enjoy karting,” he settled on, and without waiting for a gesture of confirmation, he continued, “wait no, let me start over. I don’t enjoy being _made_ to enjoy karting. I like doing it for fun but it’s kind of an expectation for me to want to do it all the time now.”

That was something he hadn’t ever voiced out loud, purely out of fear for how people would react. His friends thought karting was the coolest hobby to have and so would probably lament him for not enjoying every moment of it and his dad was the main driving force of why he was falling slightly out of love with it in the first place. He wanted Max to get to the top and win titles and countless trophies and go into the higher categories but Max was scared. There were too many things that could go wrong, and one bad race could end his career. The uncertainty played at his anxieties over his future so much it was hard to take enjoyment over progressing further and further towards the top levels of karting.

He took solace in education because it was easier to achieve a good job and work up to a good salary than it was to get into Formula 1, and much easier than it was to stay there each year. Max didn’t want the highs and lows and unpredictability of a sport career, he wanted the stability of a 9 to 5 with steady pay that was enough to let him live comfortably.

And so he told Daniel as much, going into probably way too much detail over every little thing, but frankly it was the first time he had talked about it openly, and, surprisingly, it felt good to get it off his chest. Daniel listened diligently, offering small pieces of advice here and there and assuring Max that he wasn’t being selfish in thinking of himself in the situation. He was so nice about it all Max wondered why he hadn’t told anyone before.

“Thank you,” he said, once they had fallen into a short period of silence, “It feels good to talk about this kind of stuff with someone.”

Daniel beamed, “no problem! Thanks for trusting me with it. And just know I’m only on the other side of the wall if you need anything else.”

“Likewise,” Max returned, a soft smile working its way onto his face.

Daniel looked pensive for a moment before it looked like a lightbulb switched on at the back of his mind and he shot up straight so suddenly, Max feared he would tip off the edge of the windowsill.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Go into your room for a second and tell me if you can hear me tapping on the wall connecting our rooms,” he said, not giving Max a chance to respond before he had scrambled back into his room.

Max followed his instructions and waited by the wall, straining his ears until he heard a rather pronounced knock, followed by a series of others that sounded like they were tapped in time to a tune.

When they stopped, he returned to the windowsill to find Daniel already there, with an expectant look on his face.

“I could hear them,” Max said.

“Perfect!” Daniel grinned, “let’s create a code. If I tap once, that means I’m going to the window and you can tap twice to say you’ll see me there or three times to say you’re busy. Four times means you really need to talk about something and five means ‘help I’m having a fucking breakdown’. Got it?”

Max’s head swam with all the information but he found himself nodding. It sounded silly in principle, but Max knew he would find himself needing someone to talk to and it’d come in handy sooner rather than later.

They talked until Max could feel exhaustion tugging at his bones and he excused himself back into his room with the promise that he’d use the code soon.

-:-

He didn’t hear anything from Daniel for a number of days, a period of time in which he managed to claw together a bit of motivation to do some school work and catch up with friends and even started going to sleep a little bit earlier. So in theory he could’ve missed the taps on the wall if he was asleep, but he was such a light sleeper he thought it unlikely.

Eventually though, all good things come to an end, and he found that after a couple of productive days he just fell back into his slump of procrastination. It did mean that he was awake later though, and so one night took the plunge and knocked as loud as he dared on the wall that connected his and Daniel’s bedroom. There was radio silence for almost a minute before two knocks sounded back and Max fought back a smile. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited to see Daniel.

He made his way over to the window, opened it, and pulled himself up, breathing in the crisp air and letting it do its best job at soothing him. Daniel appeared to his left a few moments later, donned with a hoodie that looked at least three sizes too big and sweatpants that pooled around his ankles. He looked tired, and Max felt bad for seemingly disturbing him, but he still managed to offer Max a gentle smile as he caught his eye.

“Hi,” Max said, “you good?”

Daniel shrugged, “been better.”

Max guessed he had caught him on a bad day, if the difference between how he was the last time they talked compared to how he was then was anything to go by. There was no jittery movements, no swinging legs – in fact he had pulled his legs up to his chest and had wrapped his arms around them to keep them close – and he frankly looked like a completely different person.

“Bad day?” Asked Max, “or bad couple of days?”

“ _Shit_ couple of days.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Daniel looked to consider the offer for a second, but frankly he looked too exhausted to talk. He shrugged again and waved a hand in the air ambiguously.

“Maybe,” he said, “but not right now. Distract me?”

And so Max did. Or at least he tried his damndest considering it didn’t look likely he’d be able to cheer Daniel up; Max knew the look in his eyes and recognised it from experience. Nothing anyone could say would make anything better, he guessed Daniel just needed something to take the edge off.

He talked about karting, and how a break from it consolidated how he didn’t overly miss it, and tried to crack a couple of jokes about how he and Lando had managed to win a game of COD the other day without even killing anyone. Daniel huffed a soft laugh at that and Max took it as a win. Baby steps.

“Lando’s your best friend?” Daniel asked once Max had finished, resting his head atop his knees.

“Yeah,” Max nodded, “we’ve been friends for a really long time.”

“That’s nice,” Daniel said with a smile, “I’ve got a friend like that but he moved to the next town over so it’s a lot harder to see him now. If only he still lived here. With all this virus bullshit I could really do with him around.”

“You tried facetiming him? I’ve done that a couple times with Lando.”

“He goes to sleep too early, I’m hardly ever awake when he is so it’s hard to coordinate everything.”

Daniel paused, hugging his legs tighter before continuing.

“I also just don’t have the energy to try make it happen anymore.”

Max bit his lip and let his eyes fall to the ground. Daniel sounded despondent in a way Max had never experienced in someone else before. It tore him apart that there was clearly something troubling Daniel and yet he couldn’t do anything about it. If he could hug him, he would. He would do it in a heartbeat.

“You feel like talking now?” Max prompted instead.

Daniel hid his face away from Max and mumbled, “ask away.”

“What’s going on? What’s got you feeling like this?” Asked Max, trying to keep his voice gentle and as welcoming as Daniel’s had been to him.

“Nothing,” Daniel sighed. “Literally nothing. I just start feeling like shit randomly and everyone says ‘oh its normal to feel like that sometimes’ but not without a reason it isn’t surely? And it isn’t just feeling a little bit down it’s… I feel _empty_ , Max. Like my chest has been hollowed out or something. I feel empty and numb to everything around me and I push everyone away but I can guarantee you in a weeks time I’ll be feeling fine and people will tell me I was being dramatic.”

Max winced. He knew Daniel wasn’t being dramatic. It was pretty clear to him something was wrong and it didn’t need a medical professional to figure it out.

“Have you thought about – I don’t know – asking your doctor about certain… mental health problems?” He approached the topic carefully, knowing it was unpredictable ground, and whether or not Daniel would feel insulted by the insinuation was up in the air.

But the other boy exhaled through his nose in way of a lazy laugh and let his legs fall from the confines of his arms until they were hung over the edge.

“For them to tell me what? That there’s something wrong with me? I don’t need any confirmation.”

“They’re there to support you though, Daniel, it’d be worth it,” Max pressed gently.

But Daniel didn’t reply and instead just stared blankly off into the distance, each moment of silence tearing away at Max inch by inch. He didn’t know what else to say that’d cheer him up and the thought of that made him feel worse.

He had come to form a quiet appreciation for his neighbour. There was something about him that Max couldn’t quite place that helped him forget about the world when they were talking. It was almost as if as soon as he breached the glass barrier of his window he stepped into his and Daniel’s little world. Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, Max felt like he and Daniel had stumbled into their own Wonderland, with colourful sunrises, crisp breezes and soft conversations whispered into the air.

As a result, the idea Daniel was feeling down and there was nothing he could do to help was worse than he had ever imagined.

“How was your day?” Daniel asked eventually, and when he turned to Max, he could see the glistening of tears in the other boy’s brown eyes.

Max shifted so his body was fully facing Daniel and tried to force a smile onto his face.

“Alright. Pretty boring I guess,” he said, stretching a leg out until his toes were inches away from Daniel’s ankle.

Daniel regarded his movements with heavy-lidded eyes, but inched his own leg closer until he made contact with Max’s. Max shivered, although whether it was from the cold or the feeling he didn’t know.

“Do anything interesting?” Daniel began but backtracked immediately, “never mind that’s a stupid question, isn’t it. What even is there to do right now?”

“I talked to you, that’s interesting,”

His neighbour scoffed but Max could see there were the remnants of a smile creeping onto his lips, and for the first time that night, it looked to be a genuine one; Max’s heart swelled at the sight. He noticed dizzyingly that Daniel was very much someone that he would usually find attractive, and perhaps he actually did. With his rampant boyish curls but harshly cut face, he was a mysterious oxymoron that was just as attractive as it was intriguing.

With a start, he realised that he could wax lyrical for hours on end about the little things that made up the boy to his left, and he guessed that was as good a sign as any that he at least had the slightest of crushes on him. The circumstances helped greatly, as there was something secretive and exciting about half sneaking out of the house to speak to someone at the crack of dawn before anyone else was awake that fuelled his feelings even further than being simply based on his looks. There was a enticing rush of adrenaline that’d creep up his spine when he’d open the window and see Daniel, one that couldn’t be explained with any reasoning other than he was genuinely looking forward to see him. Whether he was excited in the way friends were before they met up or in the way a person was before they saw their crush, however, was a separate question altogether.

-:-

As the days dragged on, Max’s motivation crept further and further towards the non-existent level. It seemed that all he had energy to do was scroll through his phone in bed and sit and talk to Daniel for hours on end. The other boy had resurfaced from his slump around a week later and they had spoken on their respective windowsills everyday since then, Daniel’s rejuvenated smile and raucous laughter being the only thing that kept him motivated enough to wave up every morning. There was something so magnetising about him that Max found it impossible to stay away.

They kept to their knocking system, and he had become so accustomed to hearing the singular knock at a similar time every night he would stop whatever he was doing and wait next to the wall until he heard it. When he didn’t, he’d simply knock instead and the two knocks that came back were like music to his ears. They hadn’t had to use four or five knocks, thankfully, but Max knew it was a matter of time before one of them did, he just hadn’t expected it to have been him.

His dad had burst into his room one day, red-faced and livid and Max knew he had fucked up.

“Tell me why I’ve just gotten a phone call from your teachers to ask why you’re doing no work?” he had hissed, voice so angry Max immediately scrambled to sit up straight in his bed.

“I don’t know,” Max had spluttered, the lie shamefully transparent but he had no better alternative.

What followed was a barrage of degrading insults, reminders that he’d achieve nothing in life if he carried on the way he was going and the odd comment about being a disappointment to the whole family thrown in for good measure. Every word that came out of his dads mouth was like a knife stabbing him again and again, right in the places that hurt the most. It was emotional agony in the worst way possible.

When the worst finally stopped flying and his dad left the room, Max had sunk into his mattress and thrown the duvet cover over his head. He wept silently for longer than he cared to remember, until his cheeks were sticky with tear tracks and eyes bloodshot from saltiness. Moving felt like torture, as if he actually had been struck physically as opposed to emotionally, and so he laid in bed for hours – ignoring his call for dinner, ignoring the buzzing of his phone, ignoring everything but his own thoughts that were rudely backing up everything his dad had said, but he didn’t even have the energy to think about something else.

When everything became too much, and his chest burnt with the effort of trying to cry but nothing coming out, Max was granted a split-second of respite from the bombardment of negative thoughts, and there was only one thing that lit up in his head first.

_Daniel._

The clock on his phone told him it was 10 minutes before they usually met up, but he needed to see him. He needed to see him so much his body went into overdrive, scrabbling around to pull on clothes and sort out his hair so quickly he got lightheaded.

He liked him. He did. It wasn’t a surprise, really.

When he sat in front of their connected wall, he raised a fist and held it against his dark blue wallpaper before knocking.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Four.

He hesitated for a second, but decided this was indeed an emergency, and knocked a final time.

Daniel’s reply came almost instantly; a rushed two knocks followed by a heavy patter of footsteps and the distant opening of a window. Max followed suit and pushed open his window, falling down the metaphorical rabbit hole as soon as the air hit his face.

He climbed up onto the windowsill and turned to face Daniel, feeling terribly guilty at the worried expression on the other boy’s face.

“What’s going on, Max? Are you alright?” Daniel asked quickly, pupils scanning over Max’s face vertiginously quick.

As if by magic, the question tore a broken sob out of Max’s chest and the tears he couldn’t get out before flowed freely again across the planes of his cheeks.

“My dad yelled at me because I haven’t been doing school work,” he managed to say through sobs, “said I wouldn’t make it in life and that I should’ve taken karting more seriously because I’m just going to end up a penniless fuckup. I can’t go through that, please…”

Daniel’s breath hitched but he spoke softly, “you won’t be a fuckup Max, listen to me okay? You’re so smart, it’s just a shit situation that’s all. No one expected to go into quarantine, so you obviously couldn’t prepare for it, and no one’s blaming you for struggling to work! Home learning doesn’t work for some people and that’s not your fault so please don’t blame yourself, your dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Max sniffled away, hesitant to let himself believe Daniel’s words, even though he knew there were elements of truth in them.

“But I should be doing better,” he mumbled.

“I can guarantee you, there will be people in worse positions than you, who have done less work and will go back into school knowing fuck all. So many people are in the same boat, don’t think it’s just you.”

“I know, it’s just… I’m scared.”

He was aware he sounded pathetic; like a wimpy child who was afraid of the unknown. But he knew Daniel wouldn’t judge him. He never did.

Daniel wiped the corners of his eyes and Max only then noticed the tears that were threatening to slip out of them.

“I wish I could give you a hug right now,” Daniel said, voice surprisingly tender.

Max couldn’t think of anything he wanted more in that moment, and before he knew it, his limbs were moving against the better judgement of his brain and he stood up precariously on the tiny ledge below the windowsill, clutching onto the edge of the open window for dear life. He ignored Daniel’s exclamations in favour of focussing all his attention on how to get over to the ledge on Daniel’s side without falling off altogether.

He stuck out a foot and managed to step onto Daniel’s ledge, hands still holding a white-knuckle grip on the window. The wind blew at him from every direction and he fought against its force trying to unbalance him, planting his feet as firmly as he could into the small space of the ledge. With a deep breath, he let go of his window frame and instead grabbed Daniel’s in the same beat, and all of a sudden, he was standing in front of the other boy, who had wisely stepped away from his window and was instead waiting just inside his room.

Max crouched down and slipped through the open window, all inhibitions seemingly forgotten as he practically flung himself at Daniel, arms winding a tight grip around his midriff that was probably painful, but Max didn’t care. The force at which he collided with the other boy knocked the wind out of his chest, and he spluttered out a croaky breath against the fabric of Daniel’s jumper.

When Daniel’s arms didn’t reciprocate the gesture immediately though, Max flinched back like he had been burnt.

”Sorry, I should’ve asked,” he stuttered, “I should’ve checked it was okay, I mean we’re in the middle of a pandemic after all, I really should’ve checked...”

But Daniel reeled him back in again, pulling at Max’s wrists until he was close enough to envelop in a hug, “It’s fine, Max. Of course I don’t mind.”

Max sighed contentedly, sagging against the weight of Daniel’s body as he plastered himself against it as close as was humanly possible. Daniel began rubbing soft shapes across Max’s back, with each swipe of his thumb slowly dragging some of the anxiety out of Max.

”Thank you,” he whispered to Daniel, though he wasn’t sure a simple ‘thank you’ was enough. He’d find the words to say at some point he was sure.

He felt Daniel’s chest vibrate as he let out a soft laugh, “it’s alright. I’m always here,” he said.

Max moved back slightly to look at Daniel in the eyes, and he found a fondness there that stole any words he was going to say out of his mouth. He had never seen such emotion in the eyes of someone else before, so much so he never thought it existed. But he saw it then, in the deceptively beautiful brown depths of Daniel’s eyes, pure and true and Max couldn’t help but believe him.

”Are you sure?” He still said, insecure words falling out purely from force of habit.

Daniel smiled, “do you want me to show you how sure I am?” 

Max couldn’t help but nod.

And within a second, Daniel had his hands up and cupping Max’s face, handling it so gently, one would imagine it as a piece of china. His fingertips were rough, and the pads of his thumbs drew shivers from his body as they swiped across the hollows of his cheeks, moving in time to the tick of the clock above the other boy’s bed. 

Max couldn’t even begin to estimate how long they stood there, simply _being_ in each others space, breathing in each others air. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been seconds, could’ve even been milliseconds, he had no idea. But it was long enough for him to feel his heart beating a mile a minute, quickening each time he blinked and the sight of Daniel so close didn’t disappear from his vision. Because he was so close it should’ve been claustrophobic, he should’ve felt overwhelmed by Daniel being so close but instead it was addicting, and if anything he found himself wanting to see how much closer he could pull the other boy.

Eventually, Daniel leant down and pressed their lips together, so soft it wasn’t farfetched to wonder if the contact had even happened at all. He kissed like he was trying to spell out every heartfelt emotion through the connection of their lips, as if he was speaking a completely new language that could only be deciphered when two people were standing as close as the two of them were in that moment. Max hung onto every unspoken word, hands unwinding from around Daniel’s back only to slide up his chest and settle to where they were linked around his neck. He translated every emotion and sent ones of his own back, making sure Daniel knew just how thankful he was so he didn’t have to express it through words.

Daniel pulled back to murmur against his lips, “I’m only on the other side of the wall, okay? Anything you need at all, I’m always here, I promise,” his eyes shone as every form of affection seemed to flash behind them, “I can’t promise you I’ll be happy everyday, and I know I need to stop being so stubborn and get help, but no matter what, I’ll be here for you.”

Max kissed him again, stronger this time, pressing down more firmly like he was scared Daniel would escape from his grasp.

”I’ll be here too, just on the other side of the wall like you said,” he concluded between his onslaught on Daniel’s lips. “Knock and I’ll come running.”

He’d come running down that rabbit hole into their Wonderland without a second thought, because what awaited him wasn’t the fanciful sights of the Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat, but a curly-haired boy with a blinding smile, who kissed Max like they were in a fairytale.

But never had a fairytale been real quite like their’s.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @thehotspurs
> 
> kudos & comments appreciated <3


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